Clinical Evaluation of Optic Nerve Head Parameters In A Rural and Urban Population in West Bengal

Aim: To clinically analyse the various optic nerve head parameters in a rural and urban population in West Bengal aged over 40 years and with open angles.

Materials and Methods: This research work has two arms, the rural arm is an eye care centre in Hooghly District of West Bengal (Village: Kuliapara, P.O. Dhobapara, P.S. Balagarh) and the urban arm is a tertiary eye hospital in Kolkata, West Bengal. People aged 40 years and above or those turning 40 in the calendar year and not on any topical or systemic medications underwent complete ophthalmological examination including clinical evaluation of optic nerve head with slit lamp biomicroscopy. Patients with history of intraocular surgery, ocular trauma, and corneal opacities preventing accurate applanation tonometry and media haze dense enough to preclude adequate fundal view were not enumerated.

Results: The sample size analysed is 1641, making it one of the largest study of its kind in India. There is a positive correlation of VCDR with age in both the rural (r = 0.24) and urban(r= 0.44) groups, though the correlation is much stronger in the urban group. The average VCDR for the urban group is 0.414 and there is a statistically significant difference between the values of the right and left eyes (p=0.027871). The average VCDR in the rural group is 0.42 and there is no statistically significant difference between the right and left eye values in this group (p=0.709461497).

Conclusions: This study not only helps to establish a large database of optic nerve head parameters for both rural and urban populations, but also highlights the significance of accurate evaluation of ONH parameters in the diagnosis and progression of glaucoma.